A scanning device, such as a scanner, typically optically scans a media sheet having an image thereon, where the image may include text, to generate an electronic version of the image. The electronic version, for instance, may be a JPG file or a TIF file. The scanning mechanism of a scanning device, such as an optical sensor, may be relatively moved vis-à-vis the media sheet, such as on a swath-by-swath (e.g., line-by-line) basis. The raw data from the optical sensor is temporarily stored in a memory buffer. A second mechanism removes the raw data from the memory buffer to generate processed data that can represent the electronic version of the image on the media sheet.
The scanning mechanism, however, may generate the raw data more quickly than the second mechanism is able to convert the raw data into the processed data. This can mean that at some point during scanning of the media sheet, the memory buffer becomes full. At this time, the scanning mechanism typically stops scanning, until there is sufficient space within the memory buffer to store raw data, at which point the scanning mechanism starts scanning again. However, such stopping and restarting of the scanning mechanism can result in artifacts being generated within the electronic version of the image on the media sheet, because it can be difficult to start scanning at the precise location at which scanning had previously stopped.